“If the law agreed and the church permitted it I would be happy to do it,” Father MacLeod-Miller said yesterday, adding his voice to leaders who have reversed their personal opinions on the issue of gay marriage.

The St Matthew’s priest said he had conducted funerals for young people who had taken their own lives because they were “different”, but on Saturday he was delighted to see students from Anglican schools flying the flag for diversity at Albury-Wodonga’s first gay marriage rally.

“There was a theoretical basis for the apartheid and people have used the Bible to keep women in slavery,” he said.

“In the Anglican tradition using your mind is very important. God has given you a mind so why don’t you use it?”

Since making his views public yesterday, Father MacLeod-Miller said he had received only supportive phone calls from those in his congregation.

Asked what the Bishop of Wangaratta, the Reverend John Parkes, thought about his views Father MacLeod-Miller said Bishop Parkes was on holiday but he wouldn’t be losing his job.

Father MacLeod-Miller said he had “repented” on his previous opposition to gay marriage, saying his simple-minded reading of the Bible and limited experience of life had led him to fear anything that was different.

“The capacity to change your mind is part of being a civilised human being so I just think the time has come,” Father MacLeod-Miller said.